Martial arts, fighting or self-protection?

One of the things that I think is vitally important in our training and teaching is to “clearly define environment”. What I mean by that is to designate in which context any given methodology, technique, tactic, training method, etc is to be utilised.

The most common failure of this that I see is people mistaking martial arts, fighting and self-protection to be one and the same. There may be some crossover, but they are still very different and teaching one as the other can be highly problematic.

Teaching fighting as self-protection will ignore vitally important things like personal security, awareness skills, the law, escaping, de-escalation, and a host of other things all of which are way more important than “fighting skills” when it comes to real self-protection.

Martial arts generally include personal challenge, an appreciation of culture and history, and are an in-depth lifelong study. I love martial arts, but the person who comes to us for self-protection instruction does not want or need many aspects of the martial arts nor are they looking for a life long study. They do however need other things which are not generally included in martial arts study.

Fighting also needs to be further defined in to “what type of fighting?” Is this a MMA fight? A boxing match? A judo match? A street fight (a term I massively dislike)? All have different ways to win and therefore we need to clearly define what a “win” is in order to get people to do what is needed to win in that specific context.

Personally, I train for and teach all three, but I am very careful to define exactly what we are going at any given time. We can do all three, but when we mix them up in to an homogenous lump by failing to define the environment and context we end up doing all three ineffectively and inefficiently in my view. Sure, there is some crossover, but there are vital distinctions and by over exaggerating the value of the crossover – and never clearly marking the distinctions – we end up teaching one as the other by default. This is a very common and very problematic situation.

I’ve posted this in the self-protection section as that is where I feel the confusion between martial arts, fighting and self-protection is most prevalent and can be most problematic (potentially fatal even).

I think this confusion between martial arts, fighting and self-protection could be a very interesting topic to explore and I’d be very interested in everyone’s thoughts on how best to clear up this confusion? I also think it would be valuable to share what people feel are common examples of this confusion in action?

We train martial arts and self-protection, but the martial arts is heavily focussed on self-protection in any case. What I mean by that is, although we practice techniques the aim is to better be able to protect ourselves, rather than the perfection of the techniques for their own sake. Similarly we practice kata, but we do them in order to uncover the pragmatic applications contained within them, not to polish the performance of them.

Although we stress the importance of awareness, assessment and avoidance it's difficult to actually practice them in the dojo. We train to strike pre-emptively should the first three fail us, or haven't been applied, and in-fight techniques and tactics in case of need. We practice restrictive striking in the context of situational and spacial awareness and predominantly use impact equipement, with relatively little time spent on air punching and kicking.

We emphasise mindset and intent over technique. That isn't to say that we deliberately use sloppy techniques, just that we place greater importance on striking with appropriate 'spite' than on any aesthetic concerns. A, perhaps, scruffy-looking strike, done with conviction is much more preferable to a 'crowd-pleaser' which lacks it.

Our drills have a good guy and a bad guy (sometimes bad guys) each of them having clearly defined roles and objectives. The good guy's aim is to get back to safety as quickly and possible and the bad guy is the only one who wants to prolong the assault.

With regard to confusion. A long time ago on the PMA Forum we were discussing techniques for self-defence. An ex-TKD and born-again MMA'ist kept going 'I'd take them to the ground and go for the choke etc.' He simply could not see the distinction between defending yourself against an attacker and defending yourself against an opponent.

I train with Lee, so not suprisingly I echo his comments. One thing I do stress is how unpleasant striking another human being is, for me this is why the awareness and avoidance is important as a means of releasing the Martial Artist from the shackles of decent behaviour. Once all available means of avoiding a physical confrontation have been exhausted you are able to pre-emptivly strike, not nice, but now you act with a clear concience.

At this point we stress to our students that you must fully commit to the strike with hateful intent, after all you didn't want this altercation and have tried to avoid it at all costs. We practice follow up blitzing strikes in case the initial strike dosn't create the opportunity to escape, the mindset remains fully committed until safety is achieved.

Thats the Self Protection bit, the Martial Arts , for me, kicks in if all the previous strikes and follow ups still hasn't achieved its goal. At this point an altercation will often descend into vertical grappling, we use Naihanchi (as mentioned in ''how do you drill Bunkai'' thread) as our support system . The key is that although we're using kata the mindset and goals are the same as the pre-emptive strike, so when we practice it looks messy and frantic, not the organised , tidy Bunkai as is often seen, basically it looks like a fight in which the ''good guy'' is focused only on incapacitating the opponent as quickly as possible to facilitate escape, exactly the same goals as we had before the first punch was thrown.

There may be some crossover, but they are still very different and teaching one as the other can be highly problematic.

Perhaps I take a simplistic view but the two qualities dojo sparring/tournament fighting should enhance are courage and composure. (Note: I'm talking about rough fighting, not touch fighting)

These obviously cross over to 'real' fighting. If courage is lost composure disappears soon after and the same the other way round. Once these qualities are reliable the physical skills are just tools. It matter less how one responds technically to any particular scenario (in the sense of he does this so you do that) so long as your tools are sharp, you keep your head and don't bottle it.

So I do see a link with all three, and rarely seperate them completely.

These obviously cross over to 'real' fighting. If courage is lost composure disappears soon after and the same the other way round. Once these qualities are reliable the physical skills are just tools.

I agree with the above sentiment and there is no doubt that courage, composure & good technique apply in all environments. The way they are employed can differ radically though. The punch used to win a fight is essentially the same punch used to facilitate escape in self-protection ... put one will lead to a more punches and the other leads to a fast sprint in the other direction. Staying and fighting when you should be running can be a big problem in a high-risk self-protection … and running off the mat in competition leads to disqualification not a win. It’s the tactical employment of the techniques that demarcates the various environments.

There is also the fact that fighting, martial arts & self-protection need differing skill sets away from the punching & kicking. A fighter or pure martial artist does not need to know the law, have an appreciation of personal security issues, have drilled escape techniques, have practised the verbal skills of de-escalation, and so on. A fighter also needs to be able to outfight their opponent. The fighter therefore needs to be prepared for a skilled interchange. In self-protection, they don’t need to be able to outfight them, so long as they can avoid them or escape them.

The issue, as I see it, is that people can fail to teach the right way that sound technique should be employed, teach methods that are not required, and fail to teach things that are required if they believe that fight training automatically covers all the bases for self-protection. Inadvertently giving people the sole answer of “fighting” to the problem of self-protection can also be a big problem as it means the more important (and more effective) issues of awareness, avoidance and escape are ignored.

So I totally agree that when it comes to the physical techniques, and the mental and physical attributes required to employ those techniques, that there is a definite crossover. It’s the way they are employed and the non-common skills that make the difference. If people don’t understand the need for the change in the way the techniques are employed and they don’t develop the “front line skills” that the physical techniques are the back up to (should all those primary skills fail) then that’s when we can have big problems.

I do teach things separately when required (i.e. no martial arts or fighting taught when I teach self-protection courses), but all three are covered under the one dojo roof … but I am very careful to cover all the bases and clearly identify what has relevance to what element i.e. what is fighting, what is martial arts, what is self-protection, what is specific to each and, as you rightly point out, what has relevance to all three.

Sadly, it is my observation that the extra skills and differences in application are ignored, or are not understood, and this is what I feel can lead to poor preparation. I hope that makes what I was driving at a little clearer?

All the best,

Iain

PS Really pleased to see you’ve moved across to the new forum Gary! It would be a far duller and less informative place without your contribution.

I understand your point. I teach a lot of SP courses and we definately don't spar. It's all low tech - high effect stuff and get away asap. In the dojo I do my best to show realistic examples of how/when skills can be applied, while stressing that combat is always a last resort. I liken this to advanced driving - if you're doing emergency stops you're not reading the road ahead ...

My ethos is dead simple really: It's all for nothing if you can't make it work. Lack of composure or courage can be the deciding factor - once our skills are up to task - so sparring is rough enough to build those qualities. Not to encourage a 'might is right' mentality or to stop someone remembering to escape asap, but to be able to keep a cool head under a bit of pressure.

My approach is around strategy. My one over-riding strategy out there is not to get hit, if I were to end up trading blows in a fight I have failed in this strategy.

Rules

Avoid getting hit i.e don't be there..........my old man used to say "if you want a fight you will always find one the hard bit is staying out of them".

Avoid fighting..........if you don't you have failed in rule #1.

If you can't avoid hit first go for the knock out it is kinder on the monkey than beating him up. When he is out of it scarper, if there is more than 1 scarper, if they are armed...........get the picture?

Remember rule #1.

To this end we train karate and the outside stuff side by side, there usually is some spill over. Beginners get taught the simple stuff (as well as the strategy) fence set up pre-emption and to use only the number of techniques you can count on one hand. Mostly slaps, elbows, knees, tigers claws, cycling open hand stuff. Most importantly we practise on the pads as well as slow targeting alla Dennis Martin.

I do subscribe to Peter Consterdine's 'box' theory you can learn different skills for different scenarios e;g; here in NZ boxers quite often cross over to kick boxing and vice versa.

I base the karate side on basics, conditioning and drills with kata at the core. Not being affiliated to any bugger I have a free reign on what I do. Self protection stuff is kept very much separate in the early stages i.e. I tell them if they have to, fall back on the simple stuff and later on as they gain more skills they can if they like to import the karate stuff into their armoury. Not too many though.

I just read this today in a book (Meditations on Violence) by Rory Miller

That’s definitely one of the best self-protection books out there. Rory’s blog is very good too and it’s listed in the Friend’s section of this website so that all new posts have automatic direct links from here.

DaveHaze wrote:

Avoid rather than run

Run rather than de-escalate

De-escalate rather than fight

Fight rather than die

It’s a great hierarchy that. However, to be able to do the above we need skills that fall outside the realm of martial arts. De-escalation needs information, training and practise. Running in this context (i.e. escaping) is not that same as “jogging” and again needs information, training and practise. To avoid we also need to be aware of potential threats and then assess them correctly. So many martial artists mistake “awareness” and “seeing” and they are not the same thing at all. Training is required to recognise threats (because people can see something and not recognise it as a potential problem) and then we need to assess the problem such that we can avoid it in the best way.

None of the above is covered in the vast majority of martial arts training and hence they are left with “fight rather than die” as their only option. Yet many martial artists advertise their classes as “self-defense” when all they are really teaching is the final resort of the subject (assuming they are teaching the right kind of fighting). That’s comparable to spending 100% of a road safety course practicing rolling off car bonnets so you stand the best chance of survival when you’ve been knocked over. Green cross code anyone? (Realisingno one outside the UK and under a certain age will get that reference :-)

It’s totally right to advise people to be aware, avoid, escape and de-escalate in preference to fighting because those things are way more effective than “fighting”. However, if they are going to be able to be aware, avoid, escape and de-escalate then we also need to give them the skills to do those things. Those skill sets are not found in “fight training” or in “martial arts” and that’s why need to be careful not to teach either of those as self-protection. Dojos, MMA gyms, boxing halls, etc can be great places to learn to fight and learn martial arts. They are rarely good places to learn self-protection because the primary skills are either not taught or are simply given lip service.

I used to think 'you get what you train for' but then I could never explain how some untrained people could fight unbelievably well and others who had all the right skills fell apart. How some untrained people lived in rough areas and never had any trouble, while some 'experts' could find a fight in church.

I asked a friend of mine (ex military and now a security professional) what makes the difference, nature or nurture and his response was "Nature 100%. That's not to say good quality training can't improve the hand you're dealt, but at the point where it's about to get painful it's keeping your head that makes all the difference".

So I hope to train people to think on their feet, avoiding trouble wherever possible but if not to not even consider giving up. It is my hope that they see the training we do as a means to reliably take them towards that 'switched on' state of mind. Not as goals (stylishness/belts/trophies) in themselves.

In the field of Health & Safety (here in NZ) we have procedures around hazard management some of the principles of which could form part of your self-protection strategy.

Identify hazards. this should be ongoing ie awareness.

Not all hazards have a high risk so we carry out a risk assessment. We have a matrix that categorises the risk low, medium and high.

Using the risk assessment to prioratise the 'Hierachy of controls Eliminate, Isolate, Minimise

Eliminate is always the first choice from a self-protection point of view you should be asking yourself, do I need to be here? Can I get out?

Isolate at work this is a shield or a fence in self-defence it could be the other side of the room or place a copper between you and your agressor adopt your own fence. If you can as circumstances change revert to Eliminate.

Minimise at work this is usually the easiest (and cheapest) involves PPE standard operating procedures and training. It is usually the first option where it should be the last in the hierachy of controls. In self-protection this is the de-esculate, pre-emption fight type stuff. How many of us start here?

These days I purely teach and research self protection (unless I am specificaly asked to teach the Heian Flow System or a bunkai seminar). I regard what I am teaching as a martial system (and to me for reasons I explained in Jissen it is 'traditional karate'), I could describe the physical performance of it as an 'art', and thus in that sense I might describe myself and my students as practising martial artists.

I don't regard Self protection as a small or a simple subject. . Physically it has to be small and simple, however the depth of study/knowledge required to offer a complete/good physical/verbal and psychological training package to students is vast. As with everything, the more you study the more you realise there is more to know.

I used to think 'you get what you train for' but then I could never explain how some untrained people could fight unbelievably well and others who had all the right skills fell apart. How some untrained people lived in rough areas and never had any trouble, while some 'experts' could find a fight in church.

I asked a friend of mine (ex military and now a security professional) what makes the difference, nature or nurture and his response was "Nature 100%. That's not to say good quality training can't improve the hand you're dealt, but at the point where it's about to get painful it's keeping your head that makes all the difference".

So I hope to train people to think on their feet, avoiding trouble wherever possible but if not to not even consider giving up. It is my hope that they see the training we do as a means to reliably take them towards that 'switched on' state of mind. Not as goals (stylishness/belts/trophies) in themselves.

Gary

Hi Gary

In my experience the ability to avoid trouble and/or handle yourself in a real fight comes down to a combination of 3 separate things: nature, nurture and training. In my opinion it is nurture that is the most important element for innate success. ;

Training takes the student as it finds him/her and sets out to develop the existing potential. The nature of the training is a big factor in the success of the student. Training should always be specific to the set goal. I still believe that you get good at what you train for, however I also believe, as Archilochus said, "we do not rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training." Of course what Archilochus did not mention is that when you fall to the level of your training, you also fall to the two remaining building blocks - nature and nurture.

Nurture is the key. Of course when we train people we are adding to their nurture, but what about the student before they came to us? The attitude of the family you are raised in (to violence), the attitude of your circle of friends, of your peers at school, the level of physical violence or atmosphere of your neighbourhood, whether you have to play contact sports at school etc... all these have a huge effect on our ability to spot and avoid trouble, and whether we can deal with the psychological pressures of a real fight or not. I've talked with any number of people who can't understand the need for some of my self protection lectures because their nurture has meant that the material I cover on attack patterns, on avoidance, on descalation techniques etc is 'common sense' to them - but for the vast majority of people I talk to, it's completely new - it's not something they have gained in their upbringing.

For me karate is a martial art, so therefore training is fighting, and fighting (in the healthy sense that it leads away from fear and paranoia) -as in combat sports. So when we perform our drills and basic techniques, we are putting them into a context where we can apply them against each other in such a way as to develop the underlying delivery system of the karate skills, and to develop our athleticism. In effect, what we do looks like MMA in a gi. I enjoy that game of using stand-up, clinch, ground, and wall/cage techniques together. Although we use our karate in this manner, what we do is not MMA, as no one at my gym competes in the cage, nor do we want to. We just enjoy the game. We are developing the physical skill sets required for fighting and self-defence (when in breaks down into fighting) in a fun and light manner. I emphasize athletic output with the use of non-damaging fighting technique (think as Judo was to the older battlefield Ju-Jitsu) to develop the qualities so often associated with martial arts (character development, self-confidence, etc). So having said all that, I think there is definite cross-over in some areas of the training.

The reason we focus on the delivery system, is because that is the foundation of being able to actually preform in a fight. Think of some of the so-called self-defence techniques (finger in the eye, knee to crotch, pressure points, etc) and their effective use. We are told they are used to end fights. Train someone with these techniques (and only these techniques) for 6 months. Give them a moving and resisting target and see how they do. That is an example of poor delivery system skills. Now take a someone who has been training in a good boxing gym for 6 months. Teach them to open their hands and eye strike or whatever. Give them the same moving and resisting target and see how they manage. They will undoubtedly fare much better. The reason is because they have been training on how to use their arms and fists through timing, resistance, and motion. They have been training athletically on the delivery system of how to use the arms. This is what we are doing with all of our karate techniques, in the ranges of stand-up, clinch, wall, and ground. So, in the context of a fight- because we have the skills of the delivery system, and because of the methodology of our training- we will fare much better in navigating the chaos of an actual fight. This is how the cross over is applicable for self-defence and all manner of fighting.

For a living, I am a manager in a medium sized security company. The training we go through is for use in the field for subject control, making arrests, mediating verbal arguments, etc. I feel that this is what most people here are referring to as self-protection, and it is vastly different from anything else. In our context, it does not include fighting. It does however, include use-of-force when a subject begins to fight against your authority. You don't fight back, you use force to affect the required control. The set of skills required to stay safe in this environment range from awareness, use of voice (command & control), use of uniform (presence), use of back-up and team effect, de-escalation and posturing, and a whole lot more. The only area we pretty much can't really train is avoidance. Due to the nature of the job, we are usually the ones going towards the trouble, and are engaged in confrontation as the norm- we do heavily train non-fighting though. There is also a point for disengaging in very volatile situations (swarmings, etc) so this is trained as well. These skills very little cross-over to fighting, they are however- the things that keep you safe in the street. I completely agree with the comments that it is typical for martial art schools to advertise street safety and defence, then teach the fighting stuff instead of the gambit of awareness, precursors, and deescalation methods.

Personally, I train for and teach all three, but I am very careful to define exactly what we are going at any given time. We can do all three, but when we mix them up in to an homogenous lump by failing to define the environment and context we end up doing all three ineffectively and inefficiently in my view. Sure, there is some crossover, but there are vital distinctions and by over exaggerating the value of the crossover – and never clearly marking the distinctions – we end up teaching one as the other by default. This is a very common and very problematic situation.

Iain

Amen to that Iain. Too many schools out there that don't understand the issue you just described and thus say, and actually believe that their "one size fits all" approach will meet a persons need in any situation. Only problem is, when what they teach is in reality more suited to sport, real life can show them to be horribly wrong about their approach when the situation falls into the self defense category..